Hugh Herr, Co-Director of MIT Center for Extreme Bionics

In this episode, filmed at the Builders + Innovators Summit in Asia, MIT Media Lab professor Hugh Herr, who lost his legs in a climbing accident, discusses how technological innovations have altered the future for people with physical disabilities.        

On how innovators think: “I think creativity, invention and ultimately innovation is an emotional phenomenon. It’s an emotional intelligence and that’s exciting because if I’m right, it means it can be taught to our children. The great minds, the great innovators in history were absolutely fearless. They would try anything. They did not care if someone laughed at them. They were fearless. So, fearlessness is a common thread when you talk about the characteristics of great innovators.”

On the future of humanity: “So, I think in 100 years, humans will be unrecognizable from what they are today, morphologically and dynamically, which is both terrifying and exciting. It’s exciting to me because right now we tend to have a very narrow view of what a beautiful human is, what a beautiful man and what a beautiful woman is, and a very narrow view of what intelligence is. I think in a world where you can just freely manipulate and sculpt your own body, what is beauty and what is good, and what is powerful and what is intelligence will incredibly expand.  So, I think that’s a good thing, to expand profoundly human diversity.”